


The Price of Volition

by unxpctedlygreat (Yurika_Schiffer)



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, I'm Bad At Tagging, Other, Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Spoilers for Post-Timeskip | War Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), felix-centric, with a somewhat happy ending?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:28:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24719785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yurika_Schiffer/pseuds/unxpctedlygreat
Summary: This is how it ends. With his sword at Dimitri's throat, a promise as much as a threat.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	The Price of Volition

**Author's Note:**

> I've played with this idea in my head before, but today I got The One Sentence that made me write it down, so here you are! This is set in my usual mix of all routes of the game, because I only remember so much and I can do whatever I want anyway, hah.
> 
> I wanted it to end up shippy but I'm terrible at writing shippy things it seems, so it's not explicitly shippy; Felix loving Dimitri is at least lowkey implied however.
> 
> I hope you'll enjoy your read!

“So this is how it ends,” Dimitri says. He’s on his knees, shoulders slumped forward and head hanging low. Areadbhar at his side, just barely held in his hand. He’s bleeding. He’s defeated.

The throne room is silent, safe for their breaths. It is only him, Dimitri, the Emperor and her retainer. No one to interfere. No one to save him. If Felix has to make a guess, the professor is caught back outside of the room, likely overwhelmed by the numbers of soldiers. Edelgard knows not to underestimate the professor.

“Yes, this is how this ends,” Felix replies.

The edge of his sword rests on the side of Dimitri’s neck, a promise as much as a threat. The light coming down from the high stained-glass windows reflects on the steel of his blade, like a reminder of the path he’s chosen. The path to light. The path to peace.

He’s sacrificed so much, too much, to get where he is now. His heart aches in a way it hasn’t for years and his mind screams for blood in a way it has for years.

This is how this ends. He only gets one shot at this, he knows. No matter what happens here and now, this is the end. He can never go back.

He lifts his sword, high in the air. The light shines upon the steel, enough to blind him if he were looking at it. But he’s not. His eyes are locked onto Dimitri, Dimitri who looks up at him, a single eye resigned but defiant, challenging. Anger surges within him. Rage consumes him whole.

He strikes.

  
  


He’s still looking Dimitri in the eye, even as his sword swings down, and down and down. And up. Up and high and higher still, until it hits.

With the strength, rage and frustration he’s put in his movement, with the power of his crest flaring inside of him, the blade has no trouble slashing through Edelgard’s unprotected neck. Her head falls off, her last cry cut off before it even began.

Felix only looks away from Dimitri’s wide eye to look at Hubert, who, still frozen with shock, takes a second too long to react and though Felix has always been terrible at magic, it’s a second enough to fire thunder at him. It only swerves him, makes him stumble; it’s enough for Felix to get into his space before he can cast a spell to attack him, enough for Felix to plunge the blood-tainted steel of his sword through his heart.

A knee on his chest, his hands still gripping the handle of his sword tightly, Felix watches the blood flow out of his body. Felix’s breath is heavy and uneven and he feels more unhinged and more at peace than ever before.

Funny, how betrayal will twist your insides in and out no matter what.

Something presses against his throat and his breath catches. He lets go of his sword and lets his hands fall to his sides. Areadbhar feels horrifyingly hot against his skin, though perhaps it’s just that his body feels so terribly cold. Behind him, Dimitri stands without a word.

This is how it ends. This is how it was always meant to end. Ever since that day, Felix has known it. Betray your home so you can betray the enemy later. Once all is done, once one side has won over the other, what is left? A traitor, to both parties. Had Edelgard survived, had Hubert survived, and Dimitri died in the end… Felix would have been killed on sight. And now, with Edelgard dead, with Hubert dead and Dimitri alive… Felix knows his fate will not be any kinder.

So he waits. Waits for it to happen. He has known he was a dead man years ago, has resigned to his fate. It was only ever a matter of _when_.

  
  


Dimitri speaks, but Felix doesn’t hear. He’s still looking down at his sword. A hand grabs his hair and lifts him up unkindly and suddenly his eyes find Dimitri’s. Dimitri’s face shows nothing of his thoughts. Felix is sure his own paints an ugly picture.

“Why have you done this?” Dimitri demands. He doesn’t ask. It would make no sense for a king to simply _ask_ , not when he’s holding an unarmed foe at sword’s point.

Felix has no answer to this.

“ _Why have you done this?_ ” Dimitri demands again, tightening his grip on Felix’s hair. The corners of his eyes start to water from the pull. Felix doesn’t think he cares much if he’s seen crying now.

“It matters not,” he croaks out. He hasn’t realized how dry his throat is.

“It does. Answer me this, Felix. Why have you done it?”

He closes his eyes, unable to look at the bright blue of Dimitri’s any longer. His body feels numb, except for where his hair is being pulled and he wishes Dimitri would just end it all. Felix has only lived for twenty-three years yet he feels as though he’s lived for centuries. He’s tired.

“I only did as I was told,” he says, at last. Dimitri has always been stubborn, even as a bloodthirsty beast, even before that. If giving him an answer is what it takes for him to finally end Felix’s misery, then so be it.

The grip on his hair loosens until it’s gone entirely and Felix forces his eyes to remain close, even though his entire being screams at him to look, to beg Dimitri for the fate he deserves and to ask why Dimitri hasn’t given it to him already.

He feels a pull on his clothes, then hears fabric being ripped. When hands bring his arms to his back, he gives them willingly. The fabric is wrapped around his arms, knotted tight enough that even if he tried, he knows he could not escape it.

He doesn’t understand.

Dimitri turns him around roughly and pushes him forward. Felix walks and when he stumbles, unstable as he is on his legs now that the adrenaline and rage have left him, Dimitri holds him upright.

He doesn’t understand.

Dimitri’s grip on his hair has messed it up enough that with his head hanging low, Felix’s face is hidden. When Dimitri brings him out of the throne room, he doesn’t know if that respite is a blessing or a curse.

Dimitri keeps a firm hand tangled in the remains of Felix’s cape, even as he takes a step forward and speaks.

“Edelgard is dead. The Empire is no more.”

His voice is that of a king, Felix knows. It shakes him to his very core and he thinks that if he wasn’t feeling so numb, he might have cried.

Dimitri is alive. Dimitri is king now.

Before them, on the battlefield, victory roars from the soldiers of the Kingdom. Felix is certain there are a few imperial soldiers left and he’s certain they won’t be left for long. He doesn’t grieve for them. Never has.

A horse approaches them and someone dismounts from it. There is a pause before the rider speaks.

“Your Highness, we have successfully rid the Imperial Palace of its army.”

It’s Sylvain. Felix feels as if he’s about to choke on thin air. He knows it will be the same when, if Ingrid comes and sees him, too. Sylvain’s gaze weighs heavy upon him and Felix has to fight his body not to crumble down.

There are fates worse than death, he’s heard. He thinks this is one of them.

  
  


Dimitri doesn’t say a word about him but he leads him back to his group. The former Blue Lion students all look at him and he can’t stand the weight of their gaze, can’t stand the guilt and shame and everything that has threatened to eat him alive all these years that fills his body again as they all take in the sight of him.

Once they’re all reunited, the professor, Seteth and Gustave included, Dimitri tells them:

“I was not the one to end her life.”

They seem surprised, shocked even, but Felix can hear more than one sigh of relief, as if Dimitri not being the one to kill Edelgard is some sort of salvation. It probably is.

There is a pause, as they all process his words entirely. Then their eyes all fall back upon Felix and if he didn’t feel so numb, he would probably shrink down on himself.

“Then… who…?” a voice asks quietly, though they all know the answer already. Felix thinks he recognizes Ashe’s voice, but how can he be sure when he has spent a grand total of two weeks in his company before turning his back on everything he used to call home.

“Felix did.”

The silence is resounding. It rings hard in Felix’s ears.

He doesn’t understand why he’s still standing, still breathing.

This is how it should have ended.

Why had it not?

  
  


They bring him back to Garreg Mach as a prisoner. He remains silent during the entire trip and after, when they lock him into one of the dusty, unused dorm rooms. He thinks there might be a guard or two in front of his door; he hears them talk sometimes.

He still doesn’t understand. His body and mind still feel numb. He shouldn’t be alive.

Dimitri comes several times to his room. He brings him food and water and sits there in silence as he watches Felix eat. It should infuriate Felix, but he doesn’t have the energy to fight anymore.

There are a few days, maybe weeks, he’s not sure, where it isn’t Dimitri who comes to feed him. He doesn’t ask Gustave why he’s the one to bring him food, or why he bothers with feeding him in the first place. Surely, if Dimitri isn’t around, there is no need to pretend Felix deserves to live. Gustave doesn’t stay, like Dimitri does, to make sure Felix eats and drinks. But habits Dimitri has ingrained in him the past weeks remain and he eats anyway. The food taste bland and he wonders if this is how it is for Dimitri, too; how it has been for him since Duscur.

When Dimitri comes back and brings food the next time, he finally speaks.

“You said you did as you were told,” he starts. Felix struggles to swallow down the piece of meat he’s bit in. “Who told you to kill the Emperor?”

He puts down his unfinished plate back on the ground. He hasn’t been hungry since he was brought here but right here and now, it feels like an even more foreign concept. How could he be hungry when his body feels so cold and empty, when his stomach feels as though it has dropped fifty feet under the ground?

He wills his mouth to work.

“My father.”

It’s the truth. But will Dimitri believe it, when Felix has killed his father in cold blood over at Arianrhod? Will Dimitri believe any of Felix’s story, when everything points at the contrary?

Perhaps this is precisely why Felix tells him the truth, in the end. There is no way Dimitri could believe this was a plan of his father, not from Rodrigue Achilles Fraldarius, who has always sworn to serve his king over anything else worth serving. Perhaps this will finally be Felix’s end. The hands of time have gone on ticking and tocking for far longer than he knows they should have, for him.

Dimitri’s face doesn’t change in light of his answer. He remains silent after that, and when he realizes Felix isn’t going to eat any more of his food, he picks up the plate and glass and leaves.

The next day is the same the days before that odd one. Dimitri comes, watches him eat and leaves. It goes on like this for a few more days, before he breaks that routine again.

“When did this all start?” he asks.

“Before I joined the Officer Academy.”

Silence again, until he leaves. The routine settles back in until he breaks it again. Felix is sure Dimitri uses the time between his questions to think it through and only comes back when something starts making sense. Or maybe stops making sense. Felix cannot say for sure whether Dimitri believes him and whether he’s actually considering his answers.

The next time, Dimitri asks him:

“Do you regret what you’ve done?”

And Felix replies immediately:

“No.”

It hurts him, eats him alive, all that he has had to do. But he doesn’t regret it.

Edelgard is dead.

Dimitri is not.

And that is all that ever mattered to him, is it not? That Dimitri lives.

When his father had taken him aside one night, a week before he was set to leave for Garreg Mach, Felix had been enraged by his father’s plan. But he had known without a doubt that he would along with it anyway, if it meant making sure Dimitri lives.

_There has been word of movement in the Empire. I do not rest easy at the thought that His Highness might be in danger in the future. I cannot entrust this to anyone but you, Felix. I ask of you that you join the Black Eagle house as soon as you can get away with it. The Princess of Adrestria will be attending at the same time as you and His Highness. Try to get close to her and become someone invaluable to her. If something were to happen, His Highness’s life lies in your hands._

His father might not have imagined a war breaking out, or maybe he had and that had been the reason of his request. But Felix had obeyed, unlike he had done until then and ever since Glenn’s death.

Deferring to the Empire, to the Black Eagle house, had been easy enough. He had already severed his ties with the prince after the rebellion in the west and Ingrid couldn’t look at him without remembering Glenn. Sylvain had been the troublesome one, but as close as Felix had been to him, he had known to hit where it hurt the most and quickly enough, even Sylvain stopped reaching out to him. The others of the Blue Lion, Felix had never bothered meeting. The inexperienced professor coming into the frame, it had been easy to lie and ask for a change of class.

Once in the eagles’ nest, it had been easy enough to deceive them. His anger at his father and his disgust of the prince, his hatred of everything that Faerghus saw as pride; all of it was genuine. As a former high noble of Faerghus, the information he could give to topple the Kingdom was priceless in the eyes of the princess and her retainer. Though it had taken months before they fully trusted him, once the war had been declared, they had embraced his presence.

And he had betrayed them all, just as he had his own home.

All for the sake of one man.

Dimitri leaves with an empty plate and an empty glass of water that day. This is the only truth that doesn’t tear him apart from the inside.

  
  


The next day, it is not Dimitri that comes to him.

The professor stands before him, watching him. They haven’t brought food, unlike Dimitri, or Gustave when Dimitri couldn’t be here.

They ask:

“Do you wish to die?”

And Felix doesn’t know anymore.

He doesn’t answer. The professor leaves, taking his silence as the answer it is.

Felix has waited for weeks for his death. It hasn’t come. He doesn’t think he can live, not after everything that happened. But he doesn’t want to be dead. Not anymore.

He blames Dimitri.

Always has.

  
  


The next day, Sylvain comes and forces him up on his feet.

“We’re going back to Fhirdiad,” is all he says. Felix’s tongue feels too clumsy, too big in his mouth for him to say anything in return.

Felix doesn’t understand why they’re bringing him back with them. He dreads setting foot in his home country again, after he’s turned his back on it and helped in its destruction. But he’s still numb all over and can only follow.

Sylvain hasn’t tied his hands, doesn’t even look back to check if he’s following him. It makes Felix’s heart ache for simpler times he’s long tried to drown in a corner of his memories. Back when they were only children and Felix was always in the shadow of one his friends, clutching hard the fabric of their clothes in fear that they’d leave him behind.

How times have changed.

The trip to Fhirdiad is particularly unexceptional. Despite his dread, passing the border of the Kingdom feels no different from passing the Empire’s or Garreg Mach’s. He’s been told to ride one of the horses and though riding has never been one of his strengths, he does without a word. He’s flanked by Sylvain and Mercedes, if he remembers her name right. They chat as though he’s not in-between them, as though he’s never been a threat to either of them or their friends or their home. Felix doesn’t know how to feel about it.

When they reach Fhirdiad, he’s taken to one of the rooms of the castle. Faintly, he remembers it being the one he used to share with Dimitri when they were kids. It doesn’t comfort him.

Dimitri starts the same routine with him as he had in Garreg Mach. Felix thinks he’s an idiot. Surely, Dimitri has better things to do now that he has won the war. Like being king, for example.

Felix is the one to break it first, this time.

“Are you going to keep me locked in here forever?”

Dimitri doesn’t reply right away. He looks at Felix, searching, then stands up and walks to the windows of the room.

“I do not know what do with you, Felix,” he says. For once, Felix understands. He doesn’t know what to do with himself, either. “On the one hand, you are but a traitor to your home and family. You have killed your kin and washed his blood off your blade without a hint of remorse. On the other hand, I believe your words that it was your father’s scheme. I have had Castle Fraldarius searched. It has taken time, but your father has left evidence of this plan of his.”

“My father was an idiot,” he can’t help but say. It’s true. If there is evidence to be found, it could have been well found by anyone before and then, what would have become of him, of them all?

“I do not wish for your death, Felix,” Dimitri says then. It hits Felix a little harder than he wishes it did. “but I do not know if your actions can be forgiven on behalf of a scheme bigger than I can wrap my mind around.”

“I do not seek forgiveness. I bear no right to it.”

Dimitri turns to look at him again. His eye shines despite the shadow he casts from the window.

“Then what is it that you seek, Felix?”

 _You_ , he wants to say. _Always you_.

He says nothing.

Dimitri leaves with a full plate and a full glass, this time.

  
  


Dimitri doesn’t come back, after this. Gustave is the one tasked with feeding him once again. Felix thinks about not eating, not drinking. It’s probably what he should have done, back when it began. He had always been too weak to Dimitri.

Sometimes, Sylvain or Ingrid come instead of Gustave. Sylvain always tries to strike up conversation, but Felix remains silent, so Sylvain just talks at him. Sylvain never liked silence. Felix doesn’t know why Sylvain still cares enough after all this time. The guilt eats him up alive.

Ingrid rarely ever talks to him. But the few times she does, he feels the stab of her words as sharply as that of a sword. She tells him, finally, that he’s nothing like Glenn ever was. That she has come to understand that Glenn didn’t die because he had to, or because his duty directed him to. That she knows now, that Glenn died following his heart, that he died to protect not his prince but a friend he cherished.

She tells him about a book she had read once, during their time at the Officer Academy. About a commander who gave an order that put a knight’s home town in extreme danger. The book questioned whether one should obey the order blindly, or if they should listen to their heart and protect their people.

She says, “At first, I thought the answer was obvious: a knight should carry on orders no matter what, as this is what they live for. But the answer bothered me and had me thinking… After Glenn’s death, after you rejected so vehemently the values that makes one a knight… It seemed obvious to me that your answer to this question would be to protect the people and give no heed to the orders.”

She shakes her heads sadly. Felix cannot stand to look at her anymore.

“In the end, you carried out the orders.”

When she leaves him, Felix feels the cracks in his mind.

  
  


He learns of Dimitri’s coronation through the cheers that erupt from the outside. It seems all of Fhirdiad is gathered to acclaim their King. That day, no one comes to feed him. He doesn’t think he could have eaten, anyway.

The reality of it all crashes down on him and for the first time in a decade, he lets himself cry.

Dimitri is alive. Dimitri is King.

And Felix bears no right to stand by his side.

  
  


The next time someone comes to feed him, it has been two days, probably. Despite the sun and the moon rising and descending in the sky that he can see through the windows, he hasn’t paid attention.

He’s laying on the bed of the room when the door opens and he closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to see to recognize Dimitri.

He doesn’t move, not even when Dimitri chooses to sit beside him on the bed, after putting down the plate and the glass on the bedside table.

Time passes in silence. The food is probably cold by the time Felix realizes Dimitri will not speak. Felix has never minded the silence before, but now, with Dimitri’s heat next to him, feeling a whole lot too real for Felix’s numb mind, it tortures him.

He breaks the silence.

“Your Majesty,” he says quietly.

Dimitri replies a little after.

“I never thought I would hear you call me so. I do not believe you have ever called me ‘Highness’.” He’s right. When they were kids, he had only ever been Dimitri to Felix. As teenagers, he had become the boar, the beast. _His Beastliness_ was the closest thing to a royal title he had given him. “If I sit on the throne today, it is only thanks to you.”

There is no way to know if this is true. Felix took the threads of fate with him when he obeyed his father, twisting and tweaking them until they followed the path he wanted them to form instead of the one they should have made for themselves.

In another life, in another universe, maybe Felix had refused to listen to his father, or maybe his father hadn’t asked that of him to begin with. Maybe in that life, he shares the struggles and pain of his friends instead of inflicting it. Maybe, in that universe, he mends the broken bonds of his and Dimitri’s relationship. Maybe, in that life, he is happy. Maybe, in that universe, he is dead. There is no way to know.

“Felix,” Dimitri starts. “What is it that you seek?”

Felix is tired, and numb, and lost and hurting. Nothing he can do or say will make the pain in his chest loosen. He will hurt until he breathes his last breath, heavy with guilt yet light without regrets.

His will to fight is long gone.

This time, he answers.

“You.”

What Dimitri will make of it, he doesn’t know. What he knows is that he will live long enough to see it, for Dimitri is the one holding the threads of fate, now.

Maybe, in this life, too, he can be happy.


End file.
